River
Okavango River
1,600 km from source to mouth · Botswana, Namibia and Angola.
Botswana, Namibia and AngolaFlows into Okavango Delta1st longest in Botswana
In numbers
Length
1,600km
Average flow
500m³/s
Basin
800,000km²
Drop
751m
from 1,734 m to 983 m
Countries
3
The journey
From source to mouth
1,600 km of river and 5 stops on the way: 4 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmBié Plateauat 1,734 m
- 1,077 kmRundu75,180 people
- 1,079 kmCalai8,741 people
- 1,216 kmNdiyona20,633 people
- 1,235 kmCuito Rivertributary
- 1,410 kmShakawe10,589 people
- 1,600 kmOkavango Deltaat 983 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in southwestern Africa
At the mouth it carries 500 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 5.0 seconds. It drops from 1,734 m to 983 m, 0.5 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 800,000 km², about the size of MZ. 1.1 million people live in it. Highest water: from February to March; lowest: from July to October. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- RunduLargest city on its banks · 75,180 people
- Rundu Airport (NDU)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 7 km from the cityCar hire at MUB airport (Maun)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water19 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- Kayak and canoe8 put-ins and rapids mapped (OpenStreetMap)
- From May to SeptemberThe best months to visit
Okavango River, month by month
Highest water: from February to March
Lowest water: from July to October. Best months to visit: from May to September.
From about 68 m³/s in the lowest month to 650 m³/s in the highest. An estimate: the monthly flow is modelled from the lowest and highest months of WaterGAP (RiverATLAS, 1971–2000) and the rain and snow along the river (WorldClim). Dams change the real rhythm. The chip is the average air temperature; below it, the month's rain.
Plan the trip
Plan the trip: boat trips, a bed by the river, a car
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
The basin
Okavango River: the basin in numbers
242,030 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 1.1millionpeople live in the basin
- 5/km²people per km²
- 1,308maverage altitude of the basin
- 728mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 21.0°Caverage air temperature
- 11%protected areas
- 0.0km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 28% Forest
- 1% Cropland
- 37% Pasture
RiverATLAS (HydroATLAS v1.0, CC BY 4.0): land cover, people, protected areas, glaciers and dams over the whole basin upstream of the mouth.
Along the river
Okavango River: what you find on the way
- 1WaterfallsPopa Falls
- 8Rapids
- 18Ferry piers
- 1Marinas
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.6 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
From space
The source and the mouth, seen from orbit
Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 by EOX IT Services GmbH (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2016), CC BY 4.0. The glowing line is the river as drawn by RiverATLAS.
Photos
Okavango River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Okavango DeltaBotswana1,343 km240 m³/sTributaries (5)
Also: Cuito River, Río Cuchi, Omatako River, Cubango, Rio Cuebe
Nearby
Rivers nearby
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q188773) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Course, profile, basin | RiverATLAS v1.0 (HydroATLAS, Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0 — followed from the source to the mouth given by Wikidata |
| Flow | WaterGAP (RiverATLAS), 1971–2000 · CC BY 4.0 |
| Climate along the river | WorldClim (RiverATLAS), 1970–2000 · CC BY 4.0 |
| Towns, bridges, dams | Wikidata · CC0; GeoNames · CC BY 4.0 |
| Along the river | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
Every source and licence is on the data sources page.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers or canyons?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.
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Every summit in 3D: summit weather, the 0 °C line, huts and trails.Visit 
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Every island from the sea up: size, sea temperature, ferries and 3D.Coming soonVisit 
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